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Monday, December 12, 2011

Although he was activated from injured reserve earlier today, right wing Cam Janssen will not play in tonight's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

It will be the fourth game in a row Janssen has missed since he sustained a deep contusion on his sternum on a hit from Winnipeg's Arturs Kulda on Dec. 3

"He's had basically one practice, so we're going to give a skate today and then I'll consider him on tomorrow's lineup (vs. Florida)," Devils coach Pete DeBoer said.

Janssen was happy to come off injured reserve ("It felt good to sign those papers") because that moves him one step closer to playing, which he hopes will happen Tuesday night against the Panthers.

"Hopefully tomorrow," he said. "I got a good skate in today. I got the practice I needed and now it's just a coaching decision and I'll be ready when they need me."

Janssen will attach some additional padding to the front of his shoulder pads to cover his sternum area, but said has no soreness there right now.

"I'm going to fix my shoulder pads up a little bit," he said. "I'm going to put a nice brace there in case there's a stick... If I get a little bit more padding there, it will help out a lot."

Janssen said he is "unbelievably eager" to get back in the lineup. He had played in 20 consecutive games before he was injured.

"I just got going," he said. "I was playing every night. I was playing good, feeling good, making good plays, getting my hits in, being physical and doing my job. I though I was doing pretty well getting the puck out, getting the puck in, doing the little things. And when you're playing every day like that it comes a lot easier just to react, doing little plays that might not look like a big deal, but it is to the coaches when they look at it on tape. They say, 'That was a good play by Cam to get the puck out of the zone. He was in the right spot.' Everything is a lot easier when you're playing every day. It just comes a lot smoother.

"Now, I've sat out for a couple of games, which is not that big of a deal. I missed two or three practices. Not that bad. So, I got everything back and I've just got to get my first game in and get my groove back."

Janssen said again that the moments after he was hit by Kulda, whose butt end of the stick apparently hit Janssen in the sternum, were "extremely scary."

"If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn my chest was caving in," Janssen said. "That's what it felt like. I didn't believe the doctors at first when they told me there was nothing wrong with me. But, (by two days later), I got up and was like, 'Wow, this feels a lot better.' If there was something wrong, it would take a lot longer to feel as good as I did that third day."

With, Janssen still out, the Devils will dress the same 12 forwards and six defensemen as they used in Saturday's 2-1 loss to Montreal. DeBoer said he will use the same line combinations and defense pairs as Sunday's practice.

Johan Hedberg will start in net tonight and Martin Brodeur will get the start Tuesday in Florida.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.